Water villages, small Italian jewels that grew up along a river

In the heart of the Po Valley, Pizzighettone is a small and charming village awarded the Orange Flag by the Italian Touring Club. The small town has an important past linked to the flow of the Adda, which still divides its historic centre in two. Etruscans and Romans, the Visconti and the Spaniards, the Austrians and Napoleon, right up to the Unification of Italy and the 20th century and the two world wars. Its walls bear witness to this, to say the least, ‘turbulent’ past. More than just walls, they are a small, fortified world dating back to the 16th century. The walls, 2 km long and 12 metres high, surround the town and house the Casematte, barrel-vaulted rooms that are all interconnected. In the whole of Europe, you can only see them here! 
Also worth seeing are the Parish Church of San Bassiano, which features a Romanesque-Lombard style, the Guado Tower, and the Church of San Pietro, adorned with fine marble and rich gilded and polychrome mosaics. Pizzighettone is also home to a wealth of museums: there is the Municipal Museum, the Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts, and the Prison Museum. Meanwhile, the Adda can be explored by taking a boat trip or by going on a walking or cycling excursion along the well-marked trails and routes within the Adda Sud Park and along the Serio Morto valley. When it comes to food, don’t miss the local delicacies, notably the Fasulin de l’öc (black-eyed beans), to which an important gastronomic event is dedicated between October and November, the Provolone Pizzighettone cheese, the Pizzighettone biscuit and the cured meats from the walled city.

One of the heartlands of the ‘Bassa Veronese’, a region of countryside and fresh water, of historic villages such as Custoza, Villafranca di Verona, Zevio, Legnago and Cologna Veneta, and, of course, Valeggio sul Mincio, a Touring Club Italiano Orange Flag village. Valeggio and its most picturesque hamlet, Borghetto, are perfect for a leisurely day out or a weekend away. You can visit the imposing Scaliger Castle, which stands on a hill overlooking the Mincio river valley.
A stone’s throw from the castle is Villa Sigurtà, built in the 17th century in the Palladian style, with its magnificent park, which won the award for Italy’s Most Beautiful Park in 2013. You can then continue your visit by climbing the Ponte Visconteo, a fortified dam built at the end of the 14th century by Gian Galeazzo Visconti to defend the city of Verona. At the foot of the bridge lies the romantic and picturesque hamlet of Borghetto. You can stroll among the houses overlooking the river, surrounded by water mills that have now been put back into operation and offer a spectacular open-air spectacle.

Claude Monet was very fond of Dolceacqua, so much so that he painted the historic ‘humpback’ bridge that still defines the skyline of this town in the Imperia hinterland. Of course, the bridge is not merely ornamental; for centuries, it has served to connect the 19th-century Borgo district with the older Terra district across the Nervia River.
In the village, which has been awarded the Touring Club Italiano’s Orange Flag, it is a pleasure to stroll through the streets, where you can still find shops and wine cellars where you can sample Rossese di Dolceacqua, a ruby-red wine with Controlled Designation of Origin status and a mellow, aromatic and sweet flavour. At the table, there is another product of excellence: the refined, light and distinctive extra-virgin olive oil.

Bevagna is one of the most evocative towns in the Valle Umbra, in the province of Perugia. A visit to Bevagna offers an excellent synthesis of everything we would like to find in a single place, and what is more, on a human scale, as recognised by the Touring Club Italiano with the award of the Orange Flag: namely, a welcoming, lively and liveable environment, with a wealth of genuinely artisanal and food and wine offerings, as well as cultural events and initiatives. But that’s not all. 
To fully appreciate it, you can start from its central square. Piazza Silvestri is one of the most interesting mediaeval structures in the whole of Umbria. It offers a unique setting, devoid of symmetry and straight lines, where visitors can admire the Romanesque Basilica of San Silvestro, the Collegiate Church of San Michele Arcangelo, with its magnificent portal and pointed bell tower, and the Palazzo dei Consoli, home to the Francesco Torti Theatre. Although closely linked to the hinterland, Bevagna is a ‘water village’. Surrounding the town are the Clitunno, the Teverone, the Timia and other watercourses, such as the Attone stream, which make this pocket-sized area of Umbrian hills a place where you can reconnect with nature.

The castle of Mercatello sul Metauro is one of the most important castles in the ancient Massa Trabaria region and has been awarded the Touring Club Italiano’s Orange Flag for a number of reasons… let’s find out what they are.

Spending quality time in Mercatello sul Metauro is like stepping back in time, experiencing the feeling of being in a fortified village as it was in the Middle Ages, with its shops, its city walls and the Metauro and Sant'Antonio rivers marking its boundaries. 

Returning to the present, you can get to know Mercatello by enjoying a tour that starts from the central Piazza Garibaldi and takes you into the collegiate church, which retains its Romanesque walls and features Gothic windows, and also houses an ancient Byzantine icon depicting the Madonna delle Grazie. Mercatello is a place whose history and landscape have been shaped by water, and not only by the accessible water of the rivers that surround it.
Indeed, just a few kilometres away, there is a water feature well worth a visit: the Gola del Furlo, a gorge between imposing rock walls through which the Candigliano River flows. At its narrowest point, in 76 AD, the Emperor Vespasian had an opening dug into the rock, which adjoins another tunnel of more ancient origin. Surrounding the gorge are over 50 km of hiking trails, spread across Monte Paganuccio and Monte Pietralata. And once you’re sitting at the table, order a plate of tagliatelle with black truffle or scorzone mushrooms – you won’t regret it.

In the heart of Abruzzo, nestled in the picturesque setting of the Majella National Park (recognised as a UNESCO Geopark), lies Fara S. Martino, a beautiful village founded by the Lombards, with a population of around 1,400. Fara is famous for its spectacular gorges, where visitors can venture out on foot, by mountain bike or on horseback, and also discover the remains of the Benedictine abbey of San Martino in Valle. Another natural attraction not to be missed is the source of the Verde River, a site that is nothing short of invigorating, fed by water whose properties help make Fara one of the world’s pasta-making capitals. The abundant availability of this water has encouraged the establishment and development of world-renowned pasta factories in the area.  The water from the Verde springs has ideal low-mineral characteristics and flows at a constant temperature of 8°C throughout the year. 
Looking further afield, visitors can set off from Fara to enjoy the scenery of the Majella National Park, one of the three national parks in Abruzzo, which boasts no fewer than 95 geosites. All this wealth, managed effectively by the local community and public authorities, has enabled Fara to obtain the Touring Club Italiano’s Orange Flag tourism quality certification.